Friday, January 06, 2012

A team building exercise

In
introducing himself to his new fan base out west, Michael Cuddyer fielded
questions from readers in the Denver Post. One question
regarding the outfielder’s excitement towards switching ballparks – from Target
Field to Coors Field – incited the former Twin to sing a familiar tune
(emphasis mine):

“I'm a
gap-to-gap hitter and I hit with power to the right-center field gap. At the
Metrodome, I would drive the ball to the baggy out in right center, and I
really peppered the ball. But if you hit
the ball to right-center at Target Field, the ball would just die. It's a long
way out there.

At Coors Field, I think I can take advantage of my natural swing
and I won't have to try and pull the ball. When
I'm going well, I'm driving the ball to right-center and I don't have to
overcompensate and try to pull the ball. At Coors, I can pull those inside
pitches down the line, but I think overall it's a more natural fit for my
swing.”

Stop me if
you have heard this one before but since Target Field opened you have been
subjected to a
barrage of data, some
scientific insight and anecdotal observation from players -- of which you
can now add Cuddyer’s name to a list that already includes Delmon Young, Justin
Morneau and Jason Kubel -- which speaks to the cavernous play of the Twins ballpark
and the effects on the players.

The fact is
that for the most part the Twins carried the same core group of hitters from
the Metrodome days into their new home. Hitters like Michael Cuddyer and Jason
Kubel performed well inside that configuration but have scuffled since moving
outdoors. They are not the only ones. In the final two years at the Metrodome,
the Twins hit 152 home runs. However, now with two seasons into the Target Field
era, they have hit just 98 home runs – the third fewest home runs at home in
baseball. Injuries, age and other factors all should be consider yet the
biggest change has to be the environment.

If you are a decision-making member of the Twins’ front office, what should you do?

One important
aspect of constructing a roster is understanding how the personnel fit into
your home ballpark. After all, you play 81 games a year at your home field, it’s
best to find a lineup that plays best to that environment.

For instance,
at Fenway Park in Boston, the left field Green Monster is whisper away from the
infield dirt at 310 to 315 feet. Therefore, it would behoove the Red Sox to skimp
on the left-handed starters – which they have, keeping Jon Lester as the only
lefty in the rotation consistently dating back to 2000. Likewise, it would also
benefit the club to fill the lineup with right-handed pull hitters who elevate
the ball to left (or someone like left-handed like Adrian Gonzalez who is very
adept at going the other way).

That’s one
such extreme example but other stadiums have their own advantages. Dodgers
Stadium favors power hitters to center field and it is no surprise Dodgers’
center fielder Matt Kemp paced baseball with 21 center field home runs (the
next closest was 13 by Ryan Howard). Seattle, meanwhile, has struggled to find
right-handed power considering Safeco Field is a challenge for righties -- an
82 Park Factor for righties, one of the lowest marks in the league.

Circling back
to the Twins, it has become evident over the course of two seasons that Target
Field is extremely pitcher-friendly (to those pitchers who keep hitters in the
big part of the park anyways). This is not a bad thing. There is no need to adjust
the walls, just the mindset when targeting hitters.

No, the
answer is not moving the walls in; the answer is in player selection.

This
offseason, the Twins were faced with the need to fill two key spots in the lineup
with impending free agents in Kubel and Cuddyer. Both were hitters that thrived
as gap-to-gap hitters. Unfortunately this trait is punished somewhat at Target
Field. To compensate, both hitters have admitted to changing their approach in
the past two seasons to accommodate the difference in play. So, the Twins have
replaced those long-time Twins with Ryan Doumit and Josh Willingham, two
players who stay closer to the foul line than Kubel or Cuddyer.

Doumit, a
switch-hitter, figures to replace Kubel’s at-bats as a designated hitter and
part-time outfielder. And, while he hits from both sides of the plate, he will
see the majority of his plate appearances from the left side. Production-wise,
they both excelled when pulling the ball. Kubel has held a .437 weighted On
Base Average with 174 weighted Runs Created. Doumit has been slightly better
with a .446 wOBA and a 177 wRC+. The difference is that whereas Kubel pulled
the ball 43% of the time in his career, Doumit yanked the pitch 53% of the
time. Given his higher tendency to pull the ball and playing in Target Field
that plays favorable down the right field line for left-handed hitters, if he
can remain healthy, Doumit could be the superior power option.

Meanwhile, I
had shown recently how Josh Willingham
is the antithesis of Michael Cuddyer when it comes to hitting. Transformed into a pull-happy right-hander
thanks to the spacious O.co Stadium in Oakland, Willingham displayed plenty of power
directed towards the left field bleachers. Over his career, Cuddyer has pulled
the ball 44% of the time while compiling a .435 wOBA and 171 wRC+. Willingham,
on the other hand, has pulled the ball 49% of the time to produce a .520 wOBA
and a 226 wRC+. So, unlike Cuddyer who seems to have become somewhat
uncomfortable regarding his old environs and needing to change his approach,
Willingham fits the mold just right.

Perhaps the
Twins organization made intentional efforts to identify hitters like Doumit and
Willingham whose skill sets include being pull hitters. Perhaps it was serendipitous
that the pair fell to the Twins. Either way, from an on-field, team-building
standpoint, this was the right direction to go.

The truth is,
being pull happy can weigh down one’s batting average and on-base percentage
(as it did for Willingham last year) but it can certainly lead to more power –
an area that the Twins have been lacking since the Metrodome days. This can be
viewed as the great power experiment for the organization – a litmus test to
see how this translates from theory to reality. If Doumit and Willingham prove to be a
success, it will be a blueprint for future player acquisitions.

18 comments:

Anonymous
said...

No, the fences should be pulled in. Most fans like to watch power hitters. Your statistical analysis in this case makes no sense. If you don't move the fences in--you don't want hitters that pull, but hitters that spray the ball.

I think I am one of the few people who like ball parks that play bigger. I think baseball is less of a game when it becomes a game of "wait for the home run". They are an important part of the game, but they should have to be earned. When players can reach out and make contact with a ball to the outside and it still clears the fence, then they're too close.

Perhaps a different conclusion from all this is for the statheads. Apparently looking at a player's results is only one part of the story. Players can and do change their approach and that will change the results they get. And adjusting for "park effects" is an exercise in deception since parks have different effects depending on the player and how they adapt to the park.

"Injuries, age and other factors all should be consider yet the biggest change has to be the environment."

Unfortunately that isn't true. In 2007 the Twins hit more home runs on the road than at home. In 2008, it was an even split. It was only in 2009 they had a huge home advantage. In short, drawing any conclusions based on a couple years is jumping the gun.

The claim that Target Field is the reason for the fall off in home runs is highly suspect if it is based on different dimensions of the parks. Its more likely that climate changes, like the switch from air-conditioning to moist summer air, are responsible. And those effects are going to be the same to all fields. Hitters may have noticed it more when hitting to the deep parts of the park, but that doesn't mean you can fix it by getting players who hit to other fields.

@TT "And adjusting for "park effects" is an exercise in deception since parks have different effects depending on the player and how they adapt to the park"

No, not adjusting for the park effect, adjusting for how that park plays.

"In 2007 the Twins hit more home runs on the road than at home."

True, they hit 48 home HRs that season - two less than '10, two more than '11. That team was one of the least powerful teams in Twins history. They had - on a regular basis - Castillo, Tyner, Punto and Bartlett in the lineup. At the astroturf'd Dome, the team could be built around slap-hitting speedsters as that was a natural advantage - much like pulling hitting appears to be at Target Field.

Outside of that season, they hit 69 in '06, 67 in '05, 89 in '04, 76 in '03, 68 in '02 (Do you see a pattern yet?). While '07 is an anomaly for the Dome, given the way Target Field has played, I'd be hard-pressed to consider it an anomaly at Target Field.

"The claim that Target Field is the reason for the fall off in home runs is highly suspect if it is based on different dimensions of the parks. Its more likely that climate changes, like the switch from air-conditioning to moist summer air, are responsible"

Yes, precisely what I said when I wrote "a barrage of data, some scientific insight and anecdotal observation from players". Wind patterns play a big role as well as the height of the right field wall. I did not say the dimensions of the park at all.

@ Anonymous: I have to agree with Parker here. Yes, watching home runs are fun, but we can't make every ballpark that plays big into a smaller park. This is one of the reasons why I love baseball, because no two fields are identical.

While TF is dimensionally similar to the Dome it doesn't play the same. And you should wait 3-4 years before even considering dimension changes. I agree that the Twins need to take more consideration in the types of hitters they get (especially power hitters).

"hey hit 69 in '06, 67 in '05, 89 in '04, 76 in '03, 68 in '02 (Do you see a pattern yet?)"

Sure. I don't think the Twins ever hit more home runs at home than on the road in any of those years. Its 2009 that was an anomaly.

"That team was one of the least powerful teams in Twins history. "

That same team hit 70 home runs on the road in 2007.

"Wind patterns play a big role as well as the height of the right field wall."

I see zero evidence for those claims. There simply isn't enough data to draw any firm conclusions about how the park plays. Certainly not enough to start making decisions based on subtle differences in a player's tendency to pull the ball.

"I have provided numerous posts detailing data in which the amount of balls that have left the park in CF and RCF is almost non-existent."

So what? You have two seasons worth of information which is not enough to draw any conclusions. And the information you have doesn't show what you claim it shows.

"You seem to be taking my post as saying the Metrodome was a hitter's haven. That's not the intention at all. The fact is that it played more favorably to hitters than Target Field does"

If you chose the right two years worth of data from the metrodome, you could "prove" the opposite. This is similar to the nonsense that got started about the "Homerdome" when the Twins had a couple good years there hitting home runs.

If you flip a coin twice and it comes up heads both times, that is zero evidence the coin is weighted. But anyone observing just those two flips, based on that observation alone, would assume the next flip would be heads as well.

Your claim about "prevailing winds" is a perfect example of the problem. Prevailing winds tell us what will happen, on average, 365 days per year, 24 hours per day. That may or may not be reflected in what the conditions were on 81 game days, at game time, when hitter x was at bat.

In short, you have flipped the coin twice and you still have ZERO EVIDENCE for how it is weighted.

@TT "So what? You have two seasons worth of information which is not enough to draw any conclusions. And the information you have doesn't show what you claim it shows."

& "If you chose the right two years worth of data from the metrodome, you could "prove" the opposite"

True, I can readily admit that two years worth of data isn't a strong foundation to base a conclusion. Yet, as most people know, two years of data can easily become four, six, twelve years worth of data. In this case, I present it as a theory based on three factors (existing data, scientific claims and player observations) not to mention personal observation for being at the stadium & watching games on TV.

Because of this, I do not see the stadium playing differently in the coming years. I am willing to bet that C-RCF will never play any differently than it has the past two seasons (That's for all teams, not just the Twins). I do not expect that number to rise anytime in the near future.

The crux of your argument seems to be around "two years worth of data" and that the Metrodome changed as a HR place over its tenure as the Twins stadium. That second claim is also true but it had a lot to do with the personnel package on the field as well. Fact of the matter is, this is a weak rebuttal to my claim that pull hitters should hit more HRs at Target Field - the main crux of my argument.

@TT "Your claim about "prevailing winds" is a perfect example of the problem. Prevailing winds tell us what will happen, on average, 365 days per year, 24 hours per day. That may or may not be reflected in what the conditions were on 81 game days, at game time, when hitter x was at bat."

Apparently you don't bother to read things and just start arguing.

Here's what it said about the winds in the NY Time article:

"The Twins hoped the ball would carry better in the warmer months. But according to Paul Huttner, the chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio, who writes the Updraft weather blog, the prevailing wind in June, July and August in Minnesota blows into the ballpark from right field toward third base. When the wind does blow out, Huttner said, it is a colder, heavier wind, and the sun-shading canopy atop the ballpark interferes with it.

Huttner said the Twins’ grounds crew also described to him an unusual wind pattern. The effect, he said, knocks down balls hit to center even if the wind appears to be blowing out."

Huttner is talking about "prevailing winds". Whether and how often those conditions existed at game time is nowhere discussed. He relies on observations of the grounds crew for the actual effects of the wind.

Moreover he does not provide evidence to support this claim, which is where this conversation started:

"Wind patterns play a big role as well as the height of the right field wall."

That wind plays a role in outdoor stadiums is hardly new information. How big that role will turn out to be at Target stadium and to what effect remains an open question. Its a little like providing the right field wall height to support your claim that it has played a "big role" in the Twins home run decline.

The Twins pitchers gave up 80 home runs at home last year and 80 on the road. Apparently the prevailing winds and right field wall played a "big role" only for Twins hitters, not their opponents. Its not hard to find data points to support any conclusion you want when you are relying on such a limited data set.

@TT "The Twins pitchers gave up 80 home runs at home last year and 80 on the road. Apparently the prevailing winds and right field wall played a "big role" only for Twins hitters, not their opponents."

You are completely wrong here again. C-RCF (and areas of LCF) played difficult for BOTH sides. Pointed that out numerous times. The argument here is that the Twins style of hitting - gap-to-gap - is not conducive for the current stadium.

"That wind plays a role in outdoor stadiums is hardly new information. How big that role will turn out to be at Target stadium and to what effect remains an open question. Its a little like providing the right field wall height to support your claim that it has played a "big role" in the Twins home run decline."

Put 2 rows of field level seats in power alley in left, and two rows in power alley in right (leaving the existing layout to dead left and dead right, and center), charge premium prices like what they do at Fenway Park to sit on the Green Monster, and you've got a special experience watching the Twins. It would only shorten the power alleys by about 12 feet, but more homers would be hit, and make the place more exciting.

Parker and TT, I must say, witnessing your argument is a lotta fun. In my opinion neither of you guys weight the evidence correctly. TT, you appear to totally discount the empirical evidence. Parker, you appear to over discount the empirical evidence. When the empirical evidence tells you something that does not agree with your theoretical suppositions the first response should be to answer "why?". In this case your most valuable evidence is from the guys in the lab...the players. What you guys are trying to divine, these guys have got hours and hours of firsthand witnessing, based on thousands of hours of firsthand experience. With TT, this disagrees with whatever he's looking at so, it gets ignored. With you Parker, this should be the platform of your argument. With your other data supplementing it. This reminds me why the various defensive stats fail so miserably.

About OtB

"Parker Hageman is the Michael Cuddyer of Twins bloggers -- not the flashiest guy out there, but a solid everyday player. Hageman produces spot-on analysis ... relying on in-depth stats and lots of charts. He takes a sober, performance-based view of players, letting others fall for a player's heart or his leadership skills in the clubhouse. Hageman is one of the four pillars holding up the Star Tribune's TwinsCentric blog."